


left behind

by Sparrows



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Oops, mild spoilers for recent episodes, this started out as kashleth and turned into a bit of a look at pike too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 17:13:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: After Vox Machina sets off on another undoubtedly dangerous adventure, Kashaw and Pike have a conversation on what it's like to be parted from the ones you love.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to veshkashaw on tumblr for helping me with a section of Kashaw's dialogue <3

It's become something of a habit, by now, for Kashaw to accompany Vox Machina down to the main square of Whitestone when they're about to leave. He stands with them under the gilded boughs of the Sun Tree, watching them go through their final preparations before they depart - squabbling over who has which potions, who should go first, last-minute additions to whatever half-baked plan they'd dreamed up this time around.

He stands, and he watches, and when Keyleth kisses him he tries not to think of it as a goodbye. Her mouth lingers on his, her fingers cupped gently against his jaw; there she stays, her forehead pressed gently to his and their breath mingling on each other's lips. There are words he wants to say - _come home safe, come home at all, let me come with you at least_ \- but they wither and die in his throat and he swallows them back down.

The moment passes. Keyleth pulls away.

“I’ll be back soon,” she promises, lips curving into a smile, and Kashaw’s struck again by the urge to hold onto her hand and not let go this time, to pull her back in close and kiss her again just to keep her here, keep her _safe_ , a little bit longer.

Again, the moment passes.  She turns towards the Sun Tree, pressing one palm to the trunk and murmuring words of power in a soft, fluid tone of voice. Kashaw is never quite going to get used to the way the tree trunk parts like water, a gap large enough to walk through pulling itself open before Keyleth ushers the rest of the group through.

He sees her wave before the pathway seals shut once more, and then Kashaw is alone.

Not literally alone, of course; Vox Machina often attracts a few bystanders when they leave, drawn in by the magic and by their heroes walking among them. He’s alone in a deeper sense, one less easily-explained. He walks away, pulling his cloak tighter around himself, lost in his own thoughts.

So lost, in fact, that he ends up standing before the temple of Pelor. It’s a beautiful building, albeit still scarred by the signs of the Briarwoods’ corruption - something Kashaw recognises only because it had been pointed out to him - and something in the carved stone facade sets him just a little bit at ease.

When he pushes the door open, Kashaw’s not sure what to expect. He’s not really a man made for temples, for worship; Vesh took that from him the same day she took everything else. He steps inside, pulling the door shut behind him as he looks around.

The temple is well-lit by torches and braziers, carefully tended, for the windows are still yet to be repaired or cleaned enough to allow the light in. Still, it is more than enough to see by, flickering light illuminating some simple furniture, adornments on the wall, the sacred shrine built at the front of the hall. The figure, small and pale, kneeling before it with head bowed.

Oh. Of course. Kashaw crosses his arms, fingertips worrying at one of the scars striping across his elbow, and watches Pike Trickfoot pray. He can’t hear her voice from this distance, if she’s even speaking at all - for all he knows she has some sort of direct line to her goddess in her brain.

The thought makes Kash’s skin crawl. He has enough to deal with, relating to Her, without the ability to speak directly into his head.

Pike pauses, lifting her head. “There’s room for one more, Kashaw,” she calls, voice echoing off the walls even though it’s barely raised above her usual tone. Quieter, she adds, “I think we could both use the company.”

He can’t argue with her there. Kashaw steps forward, walking down the center of the temple until he comes to a stop at Pike’s side. True enough, there’s room before the shrine for him to position himself on Pike’s right side on the white stone making up the temple’s floor. It looks a little worn, smooth more through the weight of time than any craftsman’s tools.

He kneels there awkwardly for a moment, feeling out of place - the lone cleric of Vesh, kneeling before a shrine to Pelor alongside a worshipper of Sarenrae - before Pike looks up again, grinning when she sees the awkward positioning of his hands.

“Here,” she murmurs, taking his hands in hers - the difference, not just in skin tone but in size, is striking - and arranging them into something resembling the way she’d held her hands before. “You don’t have to pray to anyone in particular,” Pike adds, looking up at him with a knowing, almost sad look in her eye. “Sometimes it’s nice to just… think, for a bit.”

There’s nothing he can say to that and so he doesn’t; Kash simply lowers his head and closes his eyes, letting his breathing steady out. It’s not quite prayer and not quite meditation, but somewhere between. If nothing else, it’s relaxing.

His thoughts stray towards Vox Machina. He remembers, all too well, the time they’d returned from Draconia. He remembers Keyleth coming to him in tears, barely coherent. He remembers how their moods had been _off_ for a long time, after that. And someday, they’re going to leave and come back missing somebody. He knows it, deep down in his bones; Vox Machina walks into danger every day and they don’t always _look_ before they do it. Someday they will come back missing one of their number. Perhaps Percy, or Vax, or--

Or Keyleth. He pictures it in his head without really wanting to: Vox Machina, returning to Whitestone but not via the Sun Tree, shocked and withdrawn. He thinks of Vax pulling him to the side, explaining what had happened, telling him that Keyleth is- that she’s-

Just imagining it feels like someone’s punched him in the throat - a sense of breathless nausea wells up in him and Kashaw opens his eyes, looks down to find his hands shaking.

He can’t lose her.

As if she could read the thoughts right out of his mind, Pike leans across and lays her hand - small, pale - over the top of Kashaw’s still-interlinked ones.

“They’ll come back,” she says kindly. “They always do.” There’s something in her tone that makes it sound like she’s trying to convince herself, too.

“And if they _don’t?”_

Pike doesn’t answer. Her fingers tap gently against his for a few moments.

“I know what it’s like,” she says eventually. “To be left behind, I mean. You watch everyone go running off into danger without you, and you stay behind because this is where people need you.”

She withdraws her hand and turns so that she’s facing him, not the shrine. He returns the favour with a brief, awkward shuffle and clank of golden armour. Pike has to look up to meet his eye, even with them both seated, and her smile is a sad, distant thing.

“And it hurts,” she continues, voice dropping into a soft whisper, “but you do it anyway. Because that’s what you do when you love someone.” Pike’s eyes drop to her lap, fingers twisting around each other, and the smile fades to be replaced by the smallest of frowns. “You let them go because you have to.”

“It gets easier, right?” Kashaw’s voice feels too loud, too rough, too much for this holy space. “Tell me it gets easier.”

Pike stays silent. She keeps twisting her hands together, fiddling briefly with the holy symbol around her neck, and her silence is all the answer Kashaw needs. His shoulders sag as he sighs. “Yeah, thought so,” he mutters.

They kneel in silence a little while longer before Pike speaks again. There’s a smile in her voice as she says, “You really love her, don’t you?”

Kashaw snorts. “What kind of question’s that?” When Pike’s only response is to raise both eyebrows, like she’s egging him on, he rolls his eyes. “Yes,” he says, just as sharply.

Pike leans forward, eyebrows still raised, obviously expecting a little more. Apparently _every_ member of Vox Machina is a gossip at heart. He sighs and takes a deep breath, the natural frown on his face reappearing.

"Since the day I was born I was told I was _special_. There was this prophecy, this goddess, and my eyes--" He pauses, waving a hand irritatedly - he’s getting off-track, and Pike doesn’t need his life’s story. It takes him a moment to put his hands back together the way she showed him, and it gives him time to re-gather his thoughts.

"I was raised hearing that I was destined for light. Destined for peace. My... wife, would be this darkness and I would have to be her balance." He pauses, wrings his hands, looking down at the floor. "But I didn't know what that meant - to be something's light, its balance, its... peace. Not until I met Keyleth." A small smile threatens to creep up his face but he bites it back. He’s always going to remember _that_ day. _Is she always like this?_

"Don't get me wrong, she's like anyone else, we're all just _people,_ but... Sometimes, when I'm with her... I've found it. And I understand." Speaking the words feels like a weight lifting off of his shoulders, some kind of burden released that he hadn’t known he’d been carrying. With the briefest flash of a smile that quickly fades once more, he glances sideways at Pike - who is no longer even _pretending_ to pray, far too engrossed in his words.

It feels like a long time until she replies. Pike looks at him, squinting pale-blue eyes in his direction. “I’m glad,” she eventually says in a cheerful tone, standing up and brushing unseen dust off of her knees. “Keyleth deserves someone who loves her for who she is.” Her expression, light and airy, darkens like a thundercloud for a moment as she speaks; the flicker of emotion passes before Kashaw can comment on it or question it.

Pike pats his shoulder reassuringly. “I meant what I said before. If you need to just think somewhere quiet for a while...”

Kashaw nods and turns back to the shrine, and Pike leaves him alone with his thoughts.


End file.
